Willard Tyrell Bass

Willard Tyrell Bass was an American psychologist from Mississippi. In 1984, he testified at Carl Lee Hailey's trial as a defense witness for Jake Brigance, testifying that Hailey had a temporary break with reality, that most of the famous schizophrenics were calculating, that Hailey experienced a recurrence of a dissociative condition as a result of the trauma caused by the rape of his daughter Tonya Hailey, and that he could not tell the concept of right or wrong or tell the consequences of his actions, making him legally insane. However, district attorney Rufus Buckley then questioned if he had ever been convicted of a crime, and Bass denied this under the vote. On 17 October 1960, however, he was convicted of statutory rape, and he denied this until Buckley presented him with photos taken by the Dallas police department showing Bass with an underaged girl in a hotel room. He was then forced to confess to his previous conviction, discrediting him.